Mason hoped the verbal tic was temporary.
One minute later, the boys were thrusting and parrying and making asses of themselves in the middle of the path. The cost of the sword was robbery, plain and simple; the fact that Fletcher was playing with the heir to Webb House, invaluable. Webb House would be ideal.
“We should talk.” Webb’s eyes had gone flinty.
Mason knew the tone, knew the look. Webb had work. And if he was thinking of employing a stray, then the work had to be some degree of illegal.
Well, they had to start somewhere.
“I’m in the area for a few more days.” Mason retrieved a card from his wallet.
Webb took the card. “Meeting with another House?”
Mason pulled a half smile. He wasn’t going to answer that, and Webb knew it. “As far as I know, I’m not working on anything that would conflict with the interests of Webb House.”
Admitting as much was generous, a show of good faith. It was up to Riordan now to follow through.
Gasps brought his attention back to the boys. A group of three or four humans had stopped to watch them.
“Shadow people,” whispered one.
A mom just passing yanked her children back, as if Bran and Fletcher were dangerous.
Mason frowned, and put himself in human shoes to see what had captured the bystanders’ attention. Fletcher and Bran merely looked like two almost-troublemakers, just this side of a warning. Then Fletcher thrust with his sword and Mason saw it: Bran had bullied up the shadow he cast into the shape of a man-sized, fire-breathing, scaly-tailed dragon. Fletcher’s shadow had taken on the proportions of a broad-shouldered knight. This was part of Webb House’s magic—shadow play.
“Been good seeing you,” Riordan said over his shoulder, as he grabbed Bran by the elbow and pulled him up short. The shadows disintegrated.
It took only a look from Mason to shrink Fletcher from hero to boy.
Fletcher pointed at Bran. “He did it!”
Mason cocked his head. “Do I really have to tell you why that excuse won’t fly?”
Webb and Bran had already moved away to blend back into the throng of fairgoers, preferring to leave suspicions behind them. Typical of mages, stirring up fear and uncertainty. To the frightened mother still gripping her children, Mason shot a look, parent to parent, and said, “Boys this age.”
The band’s song ended, but instead of drumming into another, there was a short pause, and then a man cleared his throat into the mic.
Mason looked down the way toward the stage, while simultaneously bringing Fletcher close by his side. Poor kid had been outed as a mage in public. Maybe bearing the long looks and unease of the humans around them would teach him a lesson.
From the speaker on the stage: “Thank you to the Larry Trumpet Blues Band for starting us all off rocking this morning.”
A smattering of applause. People were too closely packed, too hot to muster more enthusiasm than that.
Mason could make out a few figures standing on the stage. If one was the mayor who’d invited the “Shadow people,” this could get interesting. He kept a hand on Fletcher’s shoulder and milled forward with the crowd to be able to see better. Webb and Bran were up ahead, even closer. Mason spotted several other mages among the throng as well, black eyes fastened on the action at the stage.
“And a thank you to the organizers of our May Fair, led by our intrepid Judy Hart Langley.”
More polite applause while some woman in a pink pantsuit waved to the crowd.
“And now, to welcome you all here today, Mayor Bingham!”
Bigger applause. People wanted to hear this.
The mayor was wearing a suit too, and probably sweating through it. Though his hairline was receding, he seemed surprisingly young. But then that made sense. It would be the younger generation who more readily accepted the existence of Shadow. They’d spent hours online poring over those wraith videos and watching the Fact-or-Fiction? shows on TV, modern monster hunts and the like.
“Our May Fair has been a tradition for the two hundred and seventy-three years since Stanton’s founding. I’m personally thrilled to have discovered that one of our very first businesses was run by a family with ties to the Shadow people—my own.”
The mayor held up his hands to quiet murmurs; he was loving being associated with this new, exclusive group. Dumb. Possibly dead.
“I don’t have any magic—or Shadow as they call it. Wish I did. But when reports began circulating about these people who could do wonderful things, I tended to believe them. Fear does no one any good.”
Anyone with common sense would know that fear is a valid reaction to a perceived threat, and with reference to magekind, a necessary reaction—be afraid—but it was nice that this guy was preaching tolerance. Very optimistic of him.
“Which is why, on this very sunny morning, I am more than happy to welcome Shadow people here today—or mages, as I’ve just now learned is the correct term. In fact, for the past twenty minutes I’ve been having an interesting conversation with a mage, and he has graciously agreed to say a few words to you himself.”
Mason didn’t breathe until he saw the mage in question—Ranulf Cawl, as antihuman, antitolerance as mages could come. He still kept wraiths in his employ, even after the Council had banned their use last year, which begged the very obvious question: Since wraiths fed only on human souls, how was he feeding them?
Fletcher didn’t need to learn this lesson today.
The crowd tightened with interest, phones raised high to catch everything on video.
Mason picked Fletcher up around his middle, ignoring the horrified, “Daaad!” at being treated like a baby.
Too bad. It had been risky to come. They’d made a little headway with Webb; that was more than enough for a day’s work. A stray mage knew when to run. That, or he died young.
Mason was shouldering his way roughly through the crowd when Ranulf Cawl began to speak, feedback squealing through the mic. “Thank you, Mayor Bingham, for inviting me to say a few words.”
Mason lifted Fletcher over a park bench, then vaulted over the back himself. But it didn’t get them far. People had closed in all around them. The car was on the other side of the fairgrounds.
“Mayor Bingham has this idea that we’re all basically the same. And in many ways we are. Family, for example, is very important to us. And loyalty is one of our most prized character traits. Power, too, is highly sought after among my kind.”
Mason glanced over long enough to see the mayor’s smile faltering. Yeah, buddy. Little late now.
The crowd was utterly silent.
“But it’s best you know that we’re fundamentally different, so much so that there can never really be peace between us.” Cawl continued, “Point of fact, you humans have souls. We don’t. We have dark magic within us. There was a time when you humans used to hunt us down and burn us alive. It’s time for Shadow now.”
That mother who’d seen what Bran Webb could do was looking at Fletcher, her features growing tighter. Mason knew what she was thinking, or would think soon enough—that no soul meant soulless, which meant evil.
Mason held his son, his reason for living, even tighter. What Cawl had left out was that each mage had an umbra deep within, a source of magic, not so very unlike a soul. Fletcher was all good, in every way. A person would be lucky to know him.
Cawl kept talking, “. . . what the Dark Age will bring. . .” but Mason thought he’d already made his point. No peace.
Mason looked for escape. The car was too far, the crowd too tight to make much progress. Up ahead, Webb was doing little better with Bran. Any minute now, some mage was going to use Shadow to get free of this place or to make a point. And then there would be chaos.